logo
episode-header-image
Oct 2019
50m 49s

An environmental history special

Bbc World Service
About this episode

A pioneer of climate change science, UK's Windscale nuclear accident, Kenya's Green Belt heroine who won the Nobel Peace Prize, the man "who fed the world", and banning cars in Mexico City.

(Photo: Thick black smoke blowing out of an industrial chimney. Credit: John Giles/PA)

Up next
Aug 22
The battle of Mandalay and the New World screwworm
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.Our guest is Dr Elisabeth Fondren, Associate Professor of Journalism at St John's University in New York, USA.We start by hearing some groundbreaking frontline reporting from the B ... Show More
1 h
Aug 15
The Mau Mau uprising and man-eating lions
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes focussing on Kenya.We hear about Muthoni Kirima, one of the last Mau Mau fighters to come out of hiding and lay down her arms.Caroline Elkins, Professor of History at Harvard University, discusses the brutal ... Show More
1 h
Aug 8
Taiwan's White Terror and the making of City of God
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.This week, we hear about the end of decades-long martial law in Taiwan and discuss its impact on the country's literature with Ti-han Chang, the Deputy Director of Centre of Taiwan Studies at SOAS University ... Show More
1h 3m
Recommended Episodes
Oct 2021
The Sky Is Falling
October 11, 1995. Professor Mario Molina is at his desk at MIT when he gets a long distance call from Sweden. It’s the Nobel Committee, telling him he’s won that year’s prize in chemistry, making this chemistry prize the first awarded to a Mexican-born scientist and the first rec ... Show More
35m 1s
Nov 2021
The history of climate change — from the Great Ice Age to COP26 and beyond
As the COP26 summit continues in Glasgow, Jack Blanchard looks back at the history of climate change, from the dramatic shifts at the end of the Ice Age to the political rows of the modern era. Anthropologist Professor Brian Fagan takes us back to pre-historic, ancient and mediev ... Show More
48m 25s
Jun 2022
Oceans and the Sea
Smugglers, refugees, trade and melting ice and polar exploration are part of the conversation as Rana Mitter is joined in the BBC tent at the Hay Festival by Nobel Prize-winning author Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose books have drawn on his birthplace Zanzibar and the refugees arriving ... Show More
45m 22s
Nov 2023
100 Women: Changing how we think about our planet
<p>Kim Chakanetsa meets two climate change pioneers who are are on this year's BBC 100 Women list.</p><p>Basima Abdulrahman is the founder and CEO of KESK, the first company in Iraq that offers green services and products. </p><p>Jennifer Uchendu is the founder of SustyVibes, a y ... Show More
27m 26s
Feb 2023
Rachel Carson
Learn about the passionate conservationist, marine biologist, and author of Silent Spring who helped advanced the global environmentalist movement.📖  Full Text @ BedtimeHistoryStories.com📺 YouTube👍 Facebook | Instagram🇲🇽 Spanish | "Déjame contarte la Historia"Share your thou ... Show More
12m 33s
Dec 2022
Climate science and politics
As the COP27 environment summit draws to a close we look at some of the issues still to be resolved. BBC Environment correspondents Victoria Gill and Georgina Rannard join us from the meeting. And we head to the houses of parliament in the company of a group of teenagers who are ... Show More
27m 47s